We were charging $5,000 to get you two tickets. The tickets came at a knockdown price, but Samuel’s labor did not. Samuel’s method meant his clients were receiving rush tickets, often in prime seats, released on the morning of the show. Resale tickets were available online, but for $15,000 or more. “You have those theater purists who have to see the original cast, no matter the cost,” Samuel says.
Samuel had to hire people, initially friends and acquaintances, to sit in line with him, as theatergoers scrambled to catch Manuel’s final performances. Hamilton swiftly became a golden goose for Samuel, but when Miranda announced his departure from the show, it reached another level entirely. Lin-Manuel Miranda at the reopening of Hamilton last year following closure due to Covid. Or they pay Samuel, who has been doing this full-time for nine years. The show is the hottest ticket in town, largely because Hugh Jackman is playing the lead role of Professor Harold Hill, and to get a seat fans have to get down here early. Wearing a hoodie and a baseball cap, he unpacks a tiny tent and a camp chair, and settles in for what will be an hours-long wait to buy two tickets for The Music Man. On this cold Thursday in April, despite the time, Samuel is chirpy and energetic. Depending on the gig, Samuel then relinquishes his place to his customer or buys them tickets for in-demand shows. The job entails Samuel sitting, or standing, or sometimes sleeping, in lines: waiting for theater tickets, iPhone releases, and once for someone to die as part of a macabre French art exhibit. It’s a strange career, but one which has given Samuel a front row seat at some of the biggest cultural events of the last decade – and a job which perhaps sums up the state of capitalism, and inequality, in 2022.
This is where the Guardian finds Robert Samuel, a 46-year-old former mobile phone salesman, whose job is now to sit in lines for other, mostly wealthy, people.
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